The Aftermath
by YouKnowYouLovett
Summary: A terribly long oneshot about the aftermath of the Witch's disappearance. BakerXWitch because I love them. T for safeness.


**I do not own Into The Woods, or anything to do with it. It belongs to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, the geniuses of life.  
Once again, the names are those of the actors and actresses, save for Cinderella and Jack. 'Tom' is derived from Tom Aldredge, who played the Baker's father. I saw it fitting that the child be named after his grandfather, partially because I was too lazy to come up with some other name. :)  
Enjoy.**

* * *

He didn't know where she'd gone. That was the one thing that bothered him about the situation; even with his wife dead, he felt more alone at that very moment than ever before. Sure, there was still the girl, the princess and the boy with the 'sunny but vague disposition', but each meant little or nothing to Chip.

Bernadette had been right- she'd warned them all about what would happen, though of course they hadn't listened. Chip supposed, though, what hurt him most had been her last words before she'd disappeared. _"... just away from this bunch..." _Had she meant him as well? He knew that he'd done a great deal to deserve her hatred towards him, but he'd known her his entire life. Chip hadn't even known Joanna half as long, and he was nearing thirty. Bernadette had been the one constant in his life– after his mother died and his father ran away, she was the one that was there for him.

As the others began to walk away without a second glance back, Chip remained rooted to the spot where he'd last laid eyes on her. It kept entering his mind that he didn't know where she'd gone and disappeared to, and that it was bothering him, but he couldn't seem to inch any closer to reasoning.

"Chip?" Cinderella asked as she approached him carefully, the only one to have noticed that he wasn't following the rest of the group.

He didn't answer, merely kept staring at the spot on the ground where Bernadette had last stood. He didn't actually hear what Cinderella had said, but her voice had somehow unclouded his mind. The only logical thing that he could deduce from the situation was that Bernadette was dead. Quite dead, he imagined. And still it bothered him. He hated knowing that he'd never see her again, never get to apologize for something that he didn't know he'd done, never get to thank her for being kind to him (because when he thought about it, she had always been quite kind to him– a bit sarcastic and blunt, maybe, but kind nonetheless). Chip only realized then that there was so much that he didn't get to say to her; so much that he wanted to say to her... only he didn't know quite what those things were at the moment.

"Chip? We have to leave," Cinderella tried again, "or the giant will surely find us."

"She's gone," was all poor Chip could manage in his dazed state, and Cinderella took note.

"Yes... Oh but Chip, we have to go! The giant will be here any..." Cinderella gave up, and against her better judgement left Chip to stare as she ran off to catch up with the others.

He didn't even notice that she'd gone. He didn't care about Cinderella, really. Though he was more partial to her than the younger two, he still knew that he wouldn't care like he did about Bernadette. For a reason unbeknownst to him, even Joanna didn't seem as great a loss... But then he began trying to reason with himself again and before he knew it, everything had gotten out of hand. He was pacing around furiously, trying to sort out his thoughts as he went, calling out first 'Joanna', then 'Bernadette', then back again and again, as though in a war with himself over who was going to win his heart.

Before he knew it, the light was fading and he felt himself falling to the ground, calling out her name.

And then, everything went silent.

**SOMETIMESPEOPLELEAVEYOUHALFWAYTHROUGHTHEWOOD**

Chip awoke to the sound of... nothing. It was terribly quiet. He was no longer a crumpled heap of flesh and cloth in the woods anymore, however. Chip found himself to be at home, in his cottage... or what was left of it, at least. He was tucked in his bed, which was quite flattened to the floor as the legs had been crushed when it was stepped on, and there were only two walls and part of the roof left around him. As his eyes scanned the rest of the room, he saw her. Well, he couldn't really see her for the mass of brown curls– wait; her back was turned to him. He noticed that she shook slightly, and he couldn't help but wonder why. It was then he heard the small sobs coming from her and he immediately went to get up.

She turned when she heard a rustling of the bedclothes, then quickly wiped her tears away before Chip could catch a glimpse of them. Bernadette offered him as much of a smile as she could manage, then helped him up.

They both gazed into each other's eyes but said nothing for a long time. Finally, after a painfully dragged-out silence, Bernadette spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, now trying to avoid Chip's eyes.

"For what?" he inquired, taken aback. "If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me."

"For leaving you back there in the woods," she replied, completely disregarding his last statement. "I don't know what I was thinking, to be quite honest with you. It's not often I have brain lapses, but there you have it– we all get them."

"No, I don't suppose you _did_ know what you were thinking– you mightn't have been so dense if you'd known," Chip said with a frustrated sigh, completely changing his tune. It came so quickly that neither himself, nor Bernadette had seen it coming. He realized after that he'd let his mind speak for him, and it hadn't been what he'd intended to say at all.

Bernadette, however, wasn't shocked or startled at all by what he said. She'd been expecting just that reaction.

"Sorry," Chip said before she could say anything. "'Brain lapse'," he said with a sheepish grin.

Bernadette didn't smile, didn't falter at what Chip said. She simply turned and looked at the woods. After a few moments of silence, she spoke.

"I had no choice. I had to go away for a bit... it was just getting too much."

"So you left us to fight the Giant ourselves?"

"That wasn't my intention, Chip, and you know that," Bernadette said plainly.

"Then why would you just go? Do you know what that did to me- to us?" he asked, quickly correcting himself.

Bernadette turned around to face him again, looking at his hurt face, seeing the damage that she'd caused.

"I never should have come back. I was just going to stay in the tower and wait for the Giant to get to me... I'm sorry, Chip, for everything. For barging into your house unexpectedly so many times, for cursing you, for... any other thing that I've done. You'll never have to deal with me again, I promise."

And with that she kissed him lightly on the forehead, then turned and headed off towards the woods, secretly willing him to stop her.

And for a moment, Chip just stood where he was. He made no effort to stop her at all. _'It's what she deserves,'_ he told himself as he watched Bernadette walk away. Further and further away she got, and became smaller and smaller to his eye, until she vanished altogether. Once he could no longer see her red cloak, Chip turned away and sat down on a somehow unharmed chair that had been in the kitchen, but was now in the bedroom... she must have moved it.

**DONOTLETITGREAVEYOUNOONELEAVESFORGOOD**

Bernadette stood in the middle of the woods, not knowing what she was going to do next. She didn't know the woods like the back of her hand like she had in bygone years. It all looked the same after the Giant– trees knocked down everywhere, places where memories flooded back...

Onward she went through the trees, passing a broken-down cottage surrounded by three oaks as she went. After that, she didn't know where she was anymore. The trees had a uniform look to them, and she knew by then that she was hopelessly lost. Looking up, Bernadette could see that the sky was turning dark– it was almost nightfall.

At that exact moment, she heard a howl, and knew that she wasn't safe where she was. Fortunately for her, (and how it always happens to work out in fairytale lives such as the ones lived by Bernadette, Chip and the others), she was vaguely able to pick out a tower in the distance, and she quickly headed for it.

It was much easier to climb than she remembered, given that she was no longer trapped inside an old body. Bernadette nimbly scaled the wall and hopped in through the window, finding her daughter's things everywhere. Her hair brush, still filled with some golden threads of hair, her mirror, letters from her Prince... Bernadette slowly brought her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob, hating the feeling of being alone.

**INTOTHEWOODSYOUGOAGAINYOUHAVETOEVERYNOWANDTHEN**

Chip watched the sun set, feeling its warmth slowly creeping away from him as night fell and the cool air of the evening happened upon him. It had been stupid of him to let her get away. He'd just stood there and let her walk into the woods alone. The last time he'd done that with someone he loved, he hadn't seen her again. It was then that he realized that he truly loved Bernadette. Not that he hadn't loved Joanna– she had been his wife, the mother of his son (who was in Cinderella's care). But he'd always had that love for Bernadette; much more so than he would ever let on.

Chip cast a glance over at the woods and found them rather foreboding, so he quickly rounded up a team, which consisted of the usual people: Cinderella, Jack and Ellie. The baby, of course, went along with them, as there was nobody else to look after him.

The group searched for hours, splitting up every now and again to cover more ground, but they could find no trace of Bernadette. Just as Chip had almost lost all hope of ever finding her, he spotted a light flickering quite a ways off, and he knew it was her. Without warning anyone else, he started running towards the light, falling a few times as he tripped on sticks, roots and undergrowth.

Once Chip reached the tower, he was out of breath and was too tired to climb up to the window, so he picked up a few pine cones that were lying about and tossed each up in turn. When there was no response at all, he feared the worst, and so he forced himself to climb up the tower to the window. It seemed like such a long way up, but once he was in the window, he grabbed Bernadette (who let out a squeal, having been too immersed in the Prince's letters to Rapunzel to have heard him enter, or to have seen the pine cones– Chip had rather bad aim on top of it all) and kissed her so passionately that even one of the Princes would have thought Chip, a peasant, was cut out for the job. However, she soon realized it was Chip and returned his kiss just as passionately as she wrapped her arms about his neck.

"Why did you come to find me?" Bernadette asked, breaking the kiss.

"Because I knew I'd never be able to live without you," Chip replied, blushing slightly. "You've always been there for me, and for that, I owe you greatly."

"You owe me nothing. Well, except maybe this," she said, kissing him sweetly.

After they'd chatted for a moment about nothing in particular, Chip helped Bernadette down from the tower, then took her hand and led her back to the group. Her hand was soft, he noted– much softer than Joanna's, though he assumed it had been from all the hard work she'd done.

Just before they reached the clearing where Chip knew the others would be waiting, he shared a last, quick kiss with Bernadette before letting go of her hand and approaching the group.

Cinderella, Jack and Ellie all smiled rather awkwardly at Bernadette, feeling bad that they, too, had been part of the reason for her initial disappearance. Chip tried to make it seem as though he'd just saved her because he felt it was his job, and nothing more, but Bernadette quickly betrayed his front by latching onto his arm at the sound of great footsteps coming from the distance. She wasn't usually the one to get frightened, but she'd felt vulnerable all day for one reason or another, and the knowledge that she no longer had magic to protect herself and the others with made her even more fearful. The other three took no notice of this, however, as they were much too busy trying to see the Giant (which one would think they would have no trouble in doing, given that giants were... _giant_).

"Come on," Bernadette insisted, tugging on Chip's arm. "We have to get out of here, or we're all going to be a late-night snack."

Chip took no time to hesitate– he just started to run, his fingers securely entangled with Bernadette's. He didn't know where the others were, and he didn't know where he was going; he could only hear himself breathing and the footsteps still off in the distance, which were enough to encourage him to just run in as straight a line as he possibly could. Chip reached a clearing and turned around to kiss Bernadette, only to discover that she was no longer there. He looked at his sweaty hand that had held hers in disbelief, then back in the direction that he'd come from. _'Her hand must have slipped,'_ he thought. Ellie, Jack and Cinderella arrived a few seconds later, all out of breath. However, it didn't take long for them to notice the absence of Bernadette.

"Where's–" Jack began, but Chip had already started off back in the direction from whence he'd come.

He called out for her multiple times, panic overcoming him as he continued to call for her helplessly. The footsteps of what he knew to be the Giant grew louder as he trekked further back into the woods, and just when he thought he was too late, that she must have fallen and been trampled by the Giant, he saw her pale skin standing out in a convenient patch of moonlight that shone down. Though she'd fallen, she'd not been stepped on by the Giant– yet. Chip ran as fast as he could to close the gap between himself and Bernadette, and when he finally reached her, he dropped to his knees beside her.

She was face-down, so he gently turned her over. She had a rather large cut on her forehead, but it didn't look like it would do too much damage. Her eyes were closed, which worried Chip greatly, so he checked for her pulse; he found it to be quite normal, given his limited knowledge of such a thing. Chip quickly scooped Bernadette up in his arms and ran back through the trees with her as the footsteps grew ever-closer.

Once he reached yet another clearing, Chip unwillingly laid Bernadette down on a spot that looked relatively soft. He then turned to his three companions and sighed quietly.

"The Giant is coming–"

"We know that already," said Ellie, which earned her a small glare from Cinderella.

"What can we do?" Jack asked, wanting to feel like he had a part to play, too.

"We'll have to come up with a plan... a clever one, at that," Chip said.

"Well... what did you have in mind?" Cinderella asked gently, unsure of what measures they had to take.

"We should..." Chip paused a moment, coming to no conclusion. "Joanna would have known what to do," he said, realizing that that had been one of the things he'd loved about her– the way she could find a quick fix for a big problem.

The others said nothing after Chip's statement; merely stared at their shoes. After a while, though, Ellie spoke up.

"What if we..."

They continued on in such a fashion for a little while; back and forth with useless information, questions and answers. After about three minutes of arguing, however, the footsteps could be heard again.

That was the first thing to wake her. Bernadette woke with a start, still thinking that she and Chip were running through the woods. When she looked around her, though, it was apparent that that had long since passed. At first she thought it was the small group's bickering that was making her head hurt, but she soon realized that she had a cut on her forehead, and then thought nothing of it as she stood and walked over to the group.

"I think we should just give her the boy," Bernadette said loudly, making sure that she was speaking well over them all. With her statement, she grabbed hold of Jack and started dragging him to the sound of the Giant's footsteps.

Chip, Cinderella and Ellie stood still for a moment, not fully aware of what was going on. But after they realized what Bernadette was planning to do with Jack, they quickly pulled out of their stupor and ran after them, calling out to no avail.

**WE'VECHANGEDWE'RESTRANGERSI'MMEETINGYOUINTHEWOODS**

"Here! Here's the boy! TAKE HIM!" Bernadette shrieked up at the Giant as the others tried to protest.

The Giant did as she was told, and took the terrified Jack up, up, up...

It was silent for a moment, and Bernadette had time to reflect on what she'd just done. She hated herself for it, and would hate herself even more if something bad befell the poor boy. _'He was –__**is–**__ just about the same age as Rapunzel was,'_ she thought as tears welled up in her eyes. And she'd just given him willingly to the Giant– it was almost like giving up her own daughter. Bernadette backed up a few paces in hopes of seeing Jack through the treetops. She couldn't see him –none of them could, including Chip who had just arrived– but she knew that he was dead when she heard a small, faint 'crunch' sound, and then saw blood trickling down through the trees. However, she didn't react in the slightest; she simply stood and stared up at the treetops as she heard the Giant walking away, watching the red drip from the leaves. She knew it was something she'd just had to do... there hadn't been any more options.

Of course Ellie went over to touch it, being the girl that she was, but Cinderella quickly pulled her away and ushered her back near Chip, who was staring (or glaring) at Bernadette.

"Why would you do that?" he asked, approaching her.

"It got rid of the Giant," she replied emotionlessly, still transfixed by both the dripping blood and her thoughts.

"Yes. Yes, it got rid of the Giant, but now Jack is dead."

"There wasn't any other way." Bernadette couldn't deny that she was sorry for having given Jack to the Giant, but she still knew that it was the right thing to do. If they had just sacrificed him at the beginning, half the people that were dead wouldn't be. _'Joanna would be alive,'_ she thought with a bit of remorse. _'And Ellie's mother and grandmother, Jack's mother...'_ Bernadette had to stop there, because she knew exactly how Jack's mother would have felt if she had been alive to see what had happened to her son. At this, she drew in a deep breath, then turned to face the group of three.

"If any of you were in my position, you would have done the same," she stated bluntly.

"_If any of us were in your position?_" Ellie snapped, lunging at Bernadette.

Chip intervened, then, and stepped between Ellie and Bernadette, stopping the young girl as she thrashed about, trying to get past him.

"LET ME AT HER!" she yelled, kicking and hitting while she tried to escape Chip's, (and now Cinderella's), grasp.

Bernadette remained where she was, not fazed in the slightest by Ellie's sudden desire to attack her. She knew she should never have bothered to return– all it did was cause trouble again, and she was right back where she started. It made her wonder, then, if it had been worth it– any of it. She'd only started out with a curse– just a simple curse on Chip's house... But then the curse needed to be reversed, so they'd had to get the ingredients using the magic beans... and then once the curse was reversed, she'd lost her powers. That was the worst thing for Bernadette. Her powers had meant everything to her. Life was made unbearable. She could have saved everyone, had she not been so vain in the beginning and needed her beauty.

There were so many different ways that she could reason out, now, how she could have avoided altogether the misery that now hung heavily in the air. Bernadette didn't know what to do any more. She could just leave and never return, she could offer herself to the Giant, she could vow to remain in the tower in which she'd imprisoned her beautiful flower of a daughter... there were so many options. But what she wanted more than anything was Chip. Chip, who probably hated her for what she'd done to Jack... Chip who, because of her foolishness, she'd never have.

In the time it had taken Bernadette to collect her thoughts, Ellie had been calmed and was at present only crying into Cinderella's shoulder. And then, just like that, they were walking away... just leaving her there. She panicked, then, not knowing what else to do.

"Chip!" she called, but there was no answer.

Suddenly, she felt an arm wrap around her shoulders, and she looked over to see Chip. He was watching Cinderella and Ellie leave, still, as he ran his hand comfortingly up and down her arm.

"I'm not sure, Bernadette, but I think you did the right thing," he said, giving her a gentle squeeze.

"I don't know that I did. Often when you do the right thing, you don't feel terrible after," she said solemnly, a tear trailing down her cheek.

Chip quickly wiped her tear away, then gave her a quick kiss. He looked at her forehead again, and knew that he should get her back to the house and stitch the cut up– it wasn't going to heal itself. He took her hand in his and held it tightly as he led her through the trees and out of the woods. Once they'd reached the outer edge, and they could see the ruins that were their small village, each of them sighed in turn and headed off for 'home', if it could even be called that anymore.

**INTOTHEWOODSTHENOUTOFTHEWOODSANDHOMEBEFOREDARK**

'_The woods have changed since then,'_ she thought, her hand resting on the gnarled bark of an old tree. Bernadette picked her way along the outskirts of the woods, running her hand over all the trunks of the trees, a smile tugging at her lips. It had been three years, and she'd not been back to the woods since the fateful day the Giant arrived. However, they had had no more Giant trouble, and all was well in the small village– well, it had since grown, as more people were discovering the charm of living so near those particular woods.

Bernadette ventured into the depths of the trees, seeking a place long-since forgotten by anyone involved, and not known to any newcomers to the village. She plucked her way through the underbrush, searching for only five minutes until she found the spot. She hadn't realized it at the time, but the spot was actually made up of two different moments; to her left was a long-since buried hole, on which grew flowers of varying colours– that was where Joanna lay; to her right, (and she had to look, but yes, there it was under a shrub), a patch of earth forever stained red from the blood of an innocent boy.

It no longer saddened her– Bernadette liked to think that the boy hadn't died in vain, and that put her at ease somewhat. She still wasn't off the hook (and didn't expect to be) with Ellie, however, who constantly reminded her of what she'd done with a glare, or a remark. She turned to look at the grave, and plucked a daisy from amidst the flowers, then tucked it behind her ear with a small smile.

"Bernie! BERNIE!" called a small, petrified voice from the edge of the wood.  
"Coming, Tom," Bernadette called back.

She knew it was him– Chip had forbidden him from ever going near the woods given what had happened to Joanna and the rest of the Giant's victims. Given the circumstances, she had never condoned his calling her 'mama' or any variation of the word 'mother', and because her name was still a bit hard for him to pronounce, 'Bernie' was what they had decided on. Though the boy was barely able to walk through the tall grasses, he had a mouth that could go a mile a minute, and a voice as distinct as a square was from a circle.

"_BERNIE!_" Tom called out a third time, sounding even more desperate.  
"I'll be right there."

Bernadette couldn't help but smile widely as she reached the edge of the woods, seeing Tom's worried expression (he'd heard the stories of what had happened in the woods from both Bernadette and his father). Immediately he ran over to her and wrapped his arms around her leg as though he had no intention of ever letting go. However, Bernadette soon scooped him up into her arms and gave him a look.

"Just what were you doing so near to the wood? You know what your father told you," she scolded, and his lip trembled as he was on the verge of tears. But her frown turned instantly to a smile and she kissed his forehead gently. Tom laughed quietly, then nuzzled his face into her shoulder as she began walking back to the cottage.

"Can I see the woods someday?" Tom's small voice asked as he removed his face from Bernadette's shoulder long enough to pose the question, then put it back down again, his fatigue from wrestling with the tall grasses catching up with him.

"When you're older," she replied as he lazily began to play with her curls.  
"Daddy... won't know..." he trailed off as he fell asleep.

She smiled. She couldn't help but smile. She hadn't realized that it felt so good– practically three years of smiles, she'd had... well, about thirteen in total. And that was saying something, considering she was to turn thirty the next week.

Bernadette carried Tom back to the cottage and put him to bed, kissing his forehead gently before she left the room. Immediately after closing the door, she turned around and walked right into Chip's open arms. She smiled happily, returning the gesture by wrapping her arms around him and kissing him gently.

It was then that they both heard a remarkably loud, familiar sound. Chip and Bernadette rushed to the window, looking out to see a giant bean stalk stretching to the sky...


End file.
